video cards

[David Nicol]

On Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 7:18 PM, Luke -Jr <luke at dashjr.org> wrote:

>  and the device, the cord itself would be "GPL"d and the GPL forbids it to
>  link with the device.

The GPL doesn't forbid anything.  The GPL allows distribution of things, with
conditions.

> Linux has code for dealing with video cards. The nVidia driver just elaborates
>  on the specific method of dealing with an nVidia video card. That is, they
>  are exactly the same.

That's a different matter.  If the nVidia drivers are derivative works of other
linux video card drivers, then they would be derivative works of something
distributeed under the GPL. If they are clean original work that functions
against the documented modular interface, they are not.  Without knowing
anything to indicate otherwise, my guess is that the nVidia drivers for linux
are derivative code of nVidia drivers for Solaris or UnixWare or something
comparable, that they already had in-house, and getting them to work with
linux was a matter of studying just enough linux video card driver interface
to get them to work, analogous to attaching a different kind of plug
to an appliance.  That approach would take them the least amount of work,
and exempting whatever pieces they might have lifted from existing linux
code from copyright under the functional language doctrine.

http://www.chillingeffects.org/reverse/faq.cgi#QID198 and its neighbors.

Request for comments:  After completing my current degree, should I get
another one, in law?  That was my original plan, after all, back in the day.